Patrick O’Brian’s Treason’s Harbor, the ninth book of the twenty-book Aubrey-Maturin series, appears to occupy a slightly complicated place in the development of the series. On one hand, I suspect it of being a duology with the prior book, The Ionian Mission, as it also concerns a political mission from the Mediterranean command—and it doesn’t take spoilers to know that the next book, The Far Side of the World, will be set elsewhere. On the other, I suspect it of setting up a longer plot arc, as it introduces elements that are unlikely to be resolved before the characters ship off to the far side of the world in the next book (unless O’Brian splits the action, which seems unlikely as I don’t believe he’s done so before without Jack or Stephen to follow).
This is a relatively land-based book, and a bit more lively than the previous one. It also has a second-hand recounting of Jack’s opinions on literature that’s nearly as good as his comments on Hamlet in The Surgeon’s Mate:
[Stephen] was writing now . . . the letter had begun the day before, when the Surprise, steering for Santa Maura . . . had been forced away by stress of weather, forced away almost to Ithaca. ‘To Ithaca itself, upon my word of honour. But would any amount of pleading on my part or on the part of all the literate members of the ship’s company induce that animal to bear away for the sacred spot? It would not. Certainly he had heard of Homer, and had indeed looked into Mr Pope’s version of his tale; but for aught he could make out, the fellow was no seaman. Admittedly Ulysses had no chronometer, and probably no sextant neither; but with no more than log, lead and lookout an officer-like commander would have found his way home from Troy a d—d sight quicker than that. Hanging about in port and philandering, that was what it amounted to, the vice of navies from the time of Noah to that of Nelson. And as for that tale of all his foremast hands being turned into swine, so that he could not win his anchor or make sail, why, he might tell that to the Marines. Besides, he behaved like a very mere scrub to Queen Dido — though on second thought perhaps that was the other cove, the pious Anchises. But it was all one: they were six of one and half a dozen of the other, neither seamen nor gentlemen, and both of ’em God d—d bores into the bargain. For his part he far preferred what Mowett and Rowan wrote; that was poetry a man could get his teeth into, and it was sound seamanship too; in any case he was here to conduct his convoy into Santa Maura, not to gape at curiosities.’
(Though Stephen changed his mind about including that passage in his letter.)